So Annie stayed, and tossed from side to side of her little bed, and murmured unintelligible words, and grew daily a little weaker and a little more delirious. The parish doctor called, and shook his head over her: he was not a particularly clever man, but he was the best the Williamses could afford. While Annie suffered and went deeper into that valley of humiliation and weakness which leads to the gate of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, little Nan played with Peggy Williams, and accustomed herself after the fashion of little children to all the ways of her new and humble home.
It was on the eighth day of Annie’s fever that the Misses Bruce discovered her, and on the evening of that day Mrs Willis knelt by her little favourite’s bed. A better doctor had been called in, and all that money could procure had been got now for poor Annie; but the second doctor considered her case even more critical, and said that the close air of the cottage was much against her recovery.
“I didn’t make that caricature; I took the girls into the fairies’ field, but I never pasted that caricature into Cecil’s book. I know you don’t believe me, Cecil; but do you think I would really do anything so mean about one whom I love? No, no! I am innocent! God knows it. Yes, I am glad of that—God knows it.”
Over, and over in Mrs Willis’s presence these piteous words would come from the fever-stricken child, but always when she came to the little sentence “God knows I am innocent,” her voice would grow tranquil, and a faint and sweet smile would play round her lips.
Late that night a carriage drew up at a little distance from the cottage, and a moment or two afterwards Mrs Willis was called out of the room to speak to Cecil Temple.
“I have found out the truth about Annie; I have come at once to tell you,” she said; and then she repeated the substance of Hester’s and Susan’s story.
“God help me for having misjudged her,” murmured the head-mistress; then she bade Cecil “good-night,” and returned to the sick-room.
The next time Annie broke out with her piteous wail, “They believe me guilty—Mrs Willis does—they all do,” the mistress laid her hand with a firm and gentle pressure on the child’s arm.
“Not now, my dear,” she said, in a slow, clear, and emphatic voice. “God has shown your governess the truth, and she believes in you.”
The very carefully-uttered words pierced through the clouded brain; for a moment Annie lay quite still, with her bright and lovely eyes fixed on her teacher.